37 research outputs found
A Mixture of LBG Overdensities in the Fields of Three Quasars: Implications for the Robustness of Photometric Selection
The most luminous quasars at are suspected to be both highly
clustered and reside in the most massive dark matter halos in the early
Universe, making them prime targets to search for galaxy overdensities and/or
protoclusters. We search for Lyman-break dropout-selected galaxies using HST
WFC3/ACS broadband imaging in the fields of three quasars, as well
as their simultaneously observed coordinated-parallel fields, and constrain
their photometric redshifts using EAZY. One field, J0305-3150, shows a volume
density 10 higher than the blank-field UV luminosity function (UVLF) at
M, with tentative evidence of a 3 overdensity in its
parallel field located 15 cMpc away. Another field, J2054-0005, shows an
angular overdensity within 500 ckpc from the quasar but still consistent with
UVLF predictions within 3, while the last field, J2348-3054, shows no
enhancement. We discuss methods for reducing uncertainty in overdensity
measurements when using photometric selection and show that we can robustly
select LBGs consistent with being physically associated with the quasar,
corroborated by existing JWST/NIRCam WFSS data in the J0305 field. Even
accounting for incompleteness, the overdensities in J0305 and J2054 are higher
for brighter galaxies at short angular separations, suggesting preferential
enhancement of more massive galaxies in the immediate vicinity of the quasar.
Finally, we compare the LBG population with previously-identified [CII] and
mm-continuum companions; the LBG overdensities are not accompanied by an
enhanced number of dusty galaxies, suggesting that the overdense quasar fields
are not in the bursty star-forming phase sometimes seen in high-redshift
protoclusters.Comment: 22 pages (main text), 12 figures, 10 tables, 2 appendices. Final
version after addressing referee report, accepted to ApJ May 202
Searching Far and Long I: Pilot ALMA 2mm Follow-up of Bright Dusty Galaxies as a Redshift Filter
A complete census of dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) at early epochs is
necessary to constrain the obscured contribution to the cosmic star formation
rate density (CSFRD), however DSFGs beyond are both rare and hard to
identify from photometric data alone due to degeneracies in submillimeter
photometry with redshift. Here, we present a pilot study obtaining follow-up
Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) mm observations of a complete sample
of 39 -bright dusty galaxies in the SSA22 field. Empirical
modeling suggests mm imaging of existing samples of DSFGs selected at
mm can quickly and easily isolate the "needle in a
haystack" DSFGs that sit at or beyond. Combining archival submillimeter
imaging with our measured ALMA mm photometry (mJybeam rms), we characterize the galaxies' IR SEDs and use
them to constrain redshifts. With available redshift constraints fit via the
combination of six submillimeter bands, we identify 6/39 high- candidates
each with likelihood to sit at , and find a positive correlation
between redshift and mm flux density. Specifically, our models suggest the
addition of mm to a moderately constrained IR SED will improve the
accuracy of a millimeter-derived redshift from to
. Our IR SED characterizations provide evidence for
relatively high emissivity spectral indices () in the sample. We measure that especially bright (mJy) DSFGs contribute % to the cosmic-averaged CSFRD from
, confirming findings from previous work with similar samples.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
A Massive Protocluster Anchored by a Luminous Quasar at
Protoclusters, the progenitors of galaxy clusters, trace large scale
structures in the early Universe and are important to our understanding of
structure formation and galaxy evolution. To date, only a handful of
protoclusters have been identified in the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). As one
of the rarest populations in the early Universe, distant quasars that host
active supermassive black holes are thought to reside in the most massive dark
matter halos at that cosmic epoch, and could thus potentially pinpoint some of
the earliest protoclusters. In this letter, we report the discovery of a
massive protocluster around a luminous quasar at . This protocluster is
anchored by the quasar, and includes three [CII] emitters at , 12
spectroscopically confirmed Ly emitters (LAEs) at , and
a large number of narrow-band imaging selected LAE candidates at the same
redshift. This structure has an overall overdensity of
within cMpc on the sky and an
extreme overdensity of in its central region (i.e.,
cMpc). We estimate that this protocluster will collapse into a galaxy cluster
with a mass of at the current epoch,
more massive than the most massive clusters known in the local Universe such as
Coma. In the quasar vicinity, we discover a double-peaked LAE which implies
that the quasar has a UV lifetime greater than 0.8 Myrs and has already ionized
its surrounding intergalactic medium.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ
A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE): Impact of Galaxies on the CGM Metal Enrichment at z > 6 Using the JWST and VLT
We characterize the multiphase circumgalactic medium and galaxy properties at
z = 6.0-6.5 in four quasar fields from the James Webb Space Telescope A
SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE) program.
We use the Very Large Telescope/X-shooter spectra of quasar J0305-3150 to
identify one new metal absorber at z = 6.2713 with multiple transitions (OI,
MgI, FeII and CII). They are combined with the published absorbing systems in
Davies et al. (2023a) at the same redshift range to form of a sample of nine
metal absorbers at z = 6.03 to 6.49. We identify eight galaxies within 1000 km
s and 350 kpc around the absorbing gas from the ASPIRE spectroscopic
data, with their redshifts secured by [OIII](4959, 5007)
doublets and H emission lines. Our spectral energy distribution fitting
indicates that the absorbing galaxies have stellar mass ranging from 10
to 10 and metallicity between 0.02 and 0.4 solar. Notably, the
z = 6.2713 system in the J0305-3150 field resides in a galaxy overdensity
region, which contains two (tentatively) merging galaxies within 350 kpc and
seven galaxies within 1 Mpc. We measure the relative abundances of
elements to iron ([/Fe]) and find that the CGM gas in the most
overdense region exhibits a lower [/Fe] ratio. Our modeling of the
galaxy's chemical abundance favors a top-heavy stellar initial mass function,
and hints that we may be witnessing the contribution of the first generation
Population III stars to the CGM at the end of reionization epoch.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figures in the main text. Accepted for publication in
ApJ
The Web Epoch of Reionization Lyman- Survey (WERLS) I. MOSFIRE Spectroscopy of Lyman- Emitters
We present the first results from the Web Epoch of Reionization
Lyman- Survey (WERLS), a spectroscopic survey of Lyman-
emission using Keck I/MOSFIRE and LRIS. WERLS targets bright () galaxy
candidates with photometric redshifts of selected
from pre-JWST imaging embedded in the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) within three
JWST deep fields: CEERS, PRIMER, and COSMOS-Web. Here, we report 11
Lyman- emitters (LAEs; 3 secure and 8 tentative candidates) detected in
the first five nights of WERLS MOSFIRE data. We estimate our observed LAE yield
is %, broadly consistent with expectations assuming some loss from
redshift uncertainty, contamination from sky OH lines, and that the Universe is
approximately half-ionized at this epoch, whereby observable Lyman-
emission is unlikely for galaxies embedded in a neutral intergalactic medium.
Our targets are selected to be UV-bright, and span a range of absolute UV
magnitudes with . With two LAEs detected at
, we also consider the possibility of an ionized bubble at this
redshift. Future synergistic Keck+JWST efforts will provide a powerful tool for
pinpointing beacons of reionization and mapping the large scale distribution of
mass relative to the ionization state of the Universe.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures; ApJ submitte
Uncovering a Massive z~7.65 Galaxy Hosting a Heavily Obscured Radio-Loud QSO Candidate in COSMOS-Web
In this letter, we report the discovery of the highest redshift, heavily
obscured, radio-loud QSO candidate selected using JWST NIRCam/MIRI, mid-IR,
sub-mm, and radio imaging in the COSMOS-Web field. Using multi-frequency radio
observations and mid-IR photometry, we identify a powerful, radio-loud (RL),
growing supermassive black hole (SMBH) with significant spectral steepening of
the radio SED ( mJy, ,
, ). In conjunction
with ALMA, deep ground-based observations, ancillary space-based data, and the
unprecedented resolution and sensitivity of JWST, we find no evidence of QSO
contribution to the UV/optical/NIR data and thus infer heavy amounts of
obscuration (N cm). Using the wealth of deep UV
to sub-mm photometric data, we report a singular solution photo-z of
= 7.65 and estimate an extremely massive
host-galaxy (). This
source represents the furthest known obscured RL QSO candidate, and its level
of obscuration aligns with the most representative but observationally scarce
population of QSOs at these epochs.Comment: Submitted to ApJL, Comments welcom
Unveiling the distant Universe: Characterizing Galaxies in the first epoch of COSMOS-Web
We report the identification of 15 galaxy candidates at using the
initial COSMOS-Web JWST observations over 77 arcmin through four NIRCam
filters (F115W, F150W, F277W, F444W) with an overlap with MIRI (F770W) of 8.7
arcmin. We fit the sample using several publicly-available SED fitting and
photometric redshift codes and determine their redshifts between and
(), UV-magnitudes between M =
21.2 and 19.5 (with M) and rest-frame
UV slopes (). These galaxies are, on average, more
luminous than most candidates discovered by JWST so far in the
literature, while exhibiting similar blue colors in their rest-frame UV. The
rest-frame UV slopes derived from SED-fitting are blue ([2.0,
2.7]) without reaching extremely blue values as reported in other recent
studies at these redshifts. The blue color is consistent with models that
suggest the underlying stellar population is not yet fully enriched in metals
like similarly luminous galaxies in the lower redshift Universe. The derived
stellar masses with MM are not in tension with the standard
CDM model and our measurement of the volume density of such UV
luminous galaxies aligns well with previously measured values presented in the
literature at . Our sample of galaxies, although compact, are
significantly resolved.Comment: Submitted to Ap
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A SPectroscopic Survey of Biased Halos in the Reionization Era (ASPIRE): A First Look at the Rest-frame Optical Spectra of z > 6.5 Quasars Using JWST
© 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, to view a copy of the license, see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Studies of rest-frame optical emission in quasars at z > 6 have historically been limited by the wavelengths accessible by ground-based telescopes. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) now offers the opportunity to probe this emission deep into the reionization epoch. We report the observations of eight quasars at z > 6.5 using the JWST/NIRCam Wide Field Slitless Spectroscopy as a part of the “A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE)” program. Our JWST spectra cover the quasars’ emission between rest frame ∼4100 and 5100 Å. The profiles of these quasars’ broad Hβ emission lines span a full width at half maximum from 3000 to 6000 km s−1. The Hβ-based virial black hole (BH) masses, ranging from 0.6 to 2.1 billion solar masses, are generally consistent with their Mg ii-based BH masses. The new measurements based on the more reliable Hβ tracer thus confirm the existence of a billion solar-mass BHs in the reionization epoch. In the observed [O iii] λ λ 4960,5008 doublets of these luminous quasars, broad components are more common than narrow core components (≤ 1200 km s−1), and only one quasar shows stronger narrow components than broad. Two quasars exhibit significantly broad and blueshifted [O iii] emission, thought to trace galactic-scale outflows, with median velocities of −610 and −1430 km s−1 relative to the [C ii] 158 μm line. All eight quasars show strong optical Fe ii emission and follow the eigenvector 1 relations defined by low-redshift quasars. The entire ASPIRE program will eventually cover 25 quasars and provide a statistical sample for the studies of the BHs and quasar spectral properties.Peer reviewe
A SPectroscopic Survey of Biased Halos in the Reionization Era (ASPIRE): A First Look at the Rest-frame Optical Spectra of z > 6.5 Quasars Using JWST
Studies of rest-frame optical emission in quasars at z > 6 have historically been limited by the wavelengths accessible by ground-based telescopes. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) now offers the opportunity to probe this emission deep into the reionization epoch. We report the observations of eight quasars at z > 6.5 using the JWST/NIRCam Wide Field Slitless Spectroscopy as a part of the “A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE)” program. Our JWST spectra cover the quasars’ emission between rest frame ∼4100 and 5100 Å. The profiles of these quasars’ broad Hβ emission lines span a full width at half maximum from 3000 to 6000 km s. The Hβ-based virial black hole (BH) masses, ranging from 0.6 to 2.1 billion solar masses, are generally consistent with their Mg ii-based BH masses. The new measurements based on the more reliable Hβ tracer thus confirm the existence of a billion solar-mass BHs in the reionization epoch. In the observed [O iii] λ
λ 4960,5008 doublets of these luminous quasars, broad components are more common than narrow core components (≤ 1200 km s), and only one quasar shows stronger narrow components than broad. Two quasars exhibit significantly broad and blueshifted [O iii] emission, thought to trace galactic-scale outflows, with median velocities of −610 and −1430 km s relative to the [C ii] 158 μm line. All eight quasars show strong optical Fe ii emission and follow the eigenvector 1 relations defined by low-redshift quasars. The entire ASPIRE program will eventually cover 25 quasars and provide a statistical sample for the studies of the BHs and quasar spectral properties